William Charles Davis (born 1946) is an American historian who is the professor of history at Virginia Tech and Director of Programs at that school's Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. Specializing in the American Civil War, Davis has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (for Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol and Battle at Bull Run). He has written more than 40 books on the American Civil War and other aspects of early southern U.S. history.[1] He is the only three-time winner of the Jefferson Davis Prize for Confederate history and was awarded the Jules F. Landry Award for Southern history. His book Lone Star Rising has been called "the best one-volume history of the Texas revolution yet written".[2]

In 1996, Davis authored the book The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy, a critical examination of mythical claims made by neo-Confederate and Lost Cause members regarding the Confederacy and the American Civil War. Davis states that "it is impossible to point to any other local issue but slavery and say that Southerners would have seceded and fought over it." However Davis contrasted this with the motivations for individuals in the confederate military. He wrote, "The widespread northern myth that the Confederates went to the battlefield to perpetuate slavery is just that, a myth. Their letters and diaries, in the tens of thousands, reveal again and again that they fought and died because their Southern homeland was invaded and their natural instinct was to protect home an hearth."[5]

In 2000, Davis became a professor at Virginia Tech, where he serves as director of programs for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies.[1] He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.